Jack scratched the side of his head behind his ear, a nervous tic. “You know what I mean. Don’t you?”
“Kid can’t pee in tights,” the Brick guessed.
“Oh.” The woman shelved her annoyance, and a smile flickered. “Cleverly hidden zip, at the back.”
“Got’cha. Thanks.”
A few minutes later the newcomer returned to find the two Equalizers squabbling about something. When they caught wind of his approach, they went silent.
“You have Equalizer logos on your toilet paper,” he remarked.
“We do,” the woman agreed, eyes on the ground.
As the Brick settled into his sofa it creaked in a tortured manner, and then the man threw his arms over the back of the couch. “How long you been here, kid?”
“Arrived today,” said Jack, sitting down.
“Seen any action?”
“Nope.”
“Anyone bothered t’tell you the ropes?” The Brick glanced at Pretty Amazonia with a lopsided grin. His face was surprisingly flexible for a thing composed of ceramics.
“Not really — I only just got here. Stan, downstairs, gave me a few pointers.”
“The Doormat? Yeah, he ain’t half bad fer a Blando.”
“And Pretty Amazonia, here, about climbing in and out of costumes.”
The woman smiled, but said nothing.
“Okay, easy.” The Brick sat up and returned his leg to the floor. He raised one hand, as if preparing to count. “Heropa has rules. Stupid, dodgy ones I’m the first to whine about — like the Comics Code Authority all over again. One: no swearin’. Minor profanities like ‘bloody’ an’ ‘damn’ are fine, but steer clear o’ the ‘f—’, ‘c—’ an’ ‘sh—’ words. You know the ones I mean, or do I need to spell ’em out?”
“I know. Weird rule, though.”
“Like I says. Number two, honour. Yep, our very own Bushidō. Treat others — yer enemies, hell, even yer undeservin’ peers — as you expect t’be treated in return.”
“No worries about using ‘hell’?”
“Sure, ‘hell’ is okay too. Y’can push the limits o’ the honour fiddlesticks, but there’s no cheatin’ or betrayal — they expect yer t’be a fine, upstandin’ role model. Now, there was a third rule, but I’ll be bummed if I can remember that one. Four — no alcohol, no tobacco, no pharmaceuticals o’ ill repute. Number five — what’s number five again, PA?”
Pretty Amazonia smiled. “Thou shalt not kill.”
“Hah. The Bible ref. No wonder I ditched it from me noggin. Fact is we’re not s’posed to die — no matter how much we pummel one another. Rules is rules.”
“Excuse me.” That was Jack, speaking up.
Both heroes looked over.
“What?” asked the Brick.
“I get what you’re saying,” Jack assured, “but, then, who killed him, and how did he cark it?” His finger was resting on the newspaper picture of a pair of legs pinioning a billboard.
“That, kid, is a pearler of a question.”
#101
Pretty Amazonia tucked their bums in comfy white seats at the big table that would sit about thirty — though there were only three people there. Attempting to balance this by spreading themselves thin around it, they had to raise voices to hear one another.
“Where’s the Great White Mope?” the Brick asked from his region of the table.
Pretty Amazonia craned forward. “What’s that, hon?”
“I said, where’s Great White?”
The woman shrugged her broad shoulders. “Guessing he’ll be along shortly, since he called the meeting.”
“Huh?”
“He’ll be here soon!”
“Prob’ly gettin’ his jollies watching us wait.” The Brick flicked a thumb at the camera suspended in a corner of the ceiling high above. “Whatever floats his boat? He has a boat, by the by.”
Jack didn’t quite catch that last comment. “He’s a boat…?”
“No, no, he has a boat.”
“I didn’t see any harbour close by.”
“There is one, but that’s not what I’m talkin’ ’bout. Hitler’s pinup boy—”
“Who?”
“Our rookie head honcho — the Great White Hope. Likes to lord’it up from above. Got a dirigible, half the size o’ a bloody zeppelin, wrapped up in white silk o’ course. Rocket Scientist designed the contraption fer him. Can’t fly by himself, so gets round in that.”
“Where does he keep it?”
The Brick pointed at the ceiling, again using his thumb. “Upstairs.”
“And who’s this Rocket Scientist character?”
Pretty Amazonia leaned onto the table so she was fractionally closer to be heard. “A disreputable bastard of a Cape who makes flying doohickeys for anybody that asks — hero or villain — in return for a favour. With the girls he has a saying, ‘a jiggle for a jet-pack’ — meaning they have to flash their titties, give them a wobble and entertain the prick. One of the reasons I’ve never flown.”
“And with the boys?”
“Never did suss that out. Brick?”
“Don’t ask me. I’m a land-lubber like you.”
“Wasn’t one of your rules — number two, right? — all about honour?”
“Yeah, but with the caveat t’treat others as you expect t’be treated in return. Rocket Scientist is downright dodgy.”
Jack looked around at all the empty chairs. “So where is everyone?”
“We’re it,” the Brick muttered.
“What?”
“We’re it.”
“Three people?”
“Four,” Pretty Amazonia said, “once our fearless new leader arrives.”
“An’ he’s only been fearless since the Big O headbutted that billboard.”
“True.” Pretty Amazonia gazed at Jack. “The Great White Hope took the role of second-in-charge from day one, but Sir Omphalos was always numero uno and had the respect thing happening. He’s the man we really followed.”
“All two of you?”
The Brick chortled — the sound was like shale churning inside a cement mixer. “These days, yeah. In the ol’ days this table was completely populated. Thirty o’ us.”
“More. Remember some people had to stand? Back when things were fun.” Looking distracted, Pretty Amazonia had drawn off one glove and examined her fingers. Each individual nail was a different shade of neon. “For starters, there was Milkcrate Man.”
“Hah, yeah. Points fer banal dress-sense — the guy got round in a long black derro coat an’ busted up Docs, toppin’ this off with a brown plastic milkcrate that never left his head. Ranted a lot ’bout Beelzebub. I liked ‘im. Walked like John Wayne, banged into things, had an empty wine bottle permanently stuck in his mitt — you know how we’re not allowed t’drink here.”
“Hard to track down real wine out there anyway.” Pretty Amazonia sighed. “Back in Melbourne, I mean.”
“There is that,” agreed the Brick.
“What was Milkcrate Man’s special power? Did we ever find out?”
“Don’t think it mattered a hoot.”
“So, why the decrease in numbers?” Jack interjected, since he was feeling lonely.
“Decision made by the Big O,” the Brick said.
“Sir Omphalos,” tacked on Pretty Amazonia. “He thought thirty-odd members for a super-group was unwieldy. And he was right — in action we tended to trip up each other or get in the way. Some villains escaped because we accidentally bulldozed one another.”
“Like the time I laid-out the Great White Hope,” reminisced her friend.
“That was no accident. Anyway, Sir Omphalos said the best superhero groups had four members. The Fantastic Four, the Avengers at their more functional — God, even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”
“I’m not sure the Avengers were at their best as a quartet,” Jack spoke up.
“Really, now?”
“Depends. Are you talking up the time f
rom issue 16 in 1965, when Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch joined Captain America — and forgettable types like Power Man whipped them? Then again, I guess Roy Thomas, John Buscema and Vince Colletta’s combo three years later — Hawkeye, Goliath, the Wasp and the Black Panther from issue 52 — was classic stuff.”
Pretty Amazonia and her partner gawked at him in silence.
In that situation Jack felt exceptionally uncomfortable, his ears burned, and he was grateful when the Brick broke the hush.
“Bub, I don’t worry easy — even so, dunno ’bout PA, but yer scarin’ me.”
The woman was kinder. “So he’s more of a nerd than us.”
“A truckload more.”
“Speaking of which, what about you and your cars?”
“That’s a diff’rent kettle o’ fish.”
“Horses for courses,” PA muttered. “Moving right along, the Big O decided to make the Equalizers just such a group.”
“Ahh.”
“Ahh?” The woman laughed and now acted a little dismayed. “Don’t you want to know which four?”
Jack was wishing he could be anywhere but right here. The spotlight sizzled. “Sure. Which four?”
The Brick took this cue to hold up his right hand, displaying all the digits there. He appeared to enjoy using them to count.
“The Big O, PA here, me, an’ the Great White Hope — no real option with that last choice, sad t’say. Seniority carbuncle.”
“But inviting me in makes five.”
Pretty Amazonia shook her head. “No, learn to count — it recalibrates us to four. Remember, Sir Omphalos put his head through the giant ad.”
“Ah.” Sense. “Still, I don’t get everything. From what you’re saying, you were having a ball in spite of the crowd — it’s not like anything is serious here. Why institute a big cut in the line-up?”
“The Big O figured things’d changed.” The Brick stared at the floor.
“What things?”
“He lost faith in the outfit.”
Pretty Amazonia went over to her friend and placed a hand on his shoulder. They looked at each other for several seconds.
“He didn’t trust us no more.”
“Why?”
The Brick gazed Jack’s way with sad, puppy dog eyes. “Why? Easy —‘cos some whacko went an’ murdered one o’ our number.”
“The Aerialist,” Pretty Amazonia said, also hitting on despondence.
“A swell kid.”
“As was Little Nobody — yet I hear none of you jumping to defend his honour.”
That last comment came from above, the complete antithesis of the Brick’s crunchy, husky baritone. This was smooth and rich.
Jack followed up his colleagues’ Antarctic fix to view a man on the next level.
He was aged somewhere in his forties and had long, snow-coloured hair combed back straight, falling past the shoulders down his back. Precision-cut cream clothes with suede boots peeked out from beneath a radiant white cloak. While the notion of purity played across Jack’s mind, the man’s expression said this was less a cultivated, philanthropic fellow than an arrogant, self-opinionated Roman-emperor type.
“That probably has to do with the ignominy of Little Nobody’s demise,” Pretty Amazonia spoke up.
As Jack glanced over, she shrugged.
“Being stepped on in the middle of a fight with the Tick — well, we all knew it was a horrible accident.”
The newcomer pursed his lips. “Why, because the Brick did the stepping?”
Jack swivelled to look at the Brick, and then his huge feet. “You stepped on someone?”
“Two people,” the man said above.
“Hey.” The walking slab sat back and held up his right thumb and index finger to indicate a size about half a centimetre. “They were this big. We were in the middle of a bout with the League. How could I see the bastards?”
“What league?”
“The League of Unmitigated Rotters.” Once he knew he had their attention that white-clad man up on the second level started to move. He glided slowly on the stairs, and Jack could’ve sworn his legs didn’t move a single muscle all the way down.
“Ye ol’ el grando entrance,” he heard the Brick murmur. “Surprise, surprise.”
Jack was still reeling with the idiocy of a name like the League of Unmitigated Rotters, but kept his trap shut as the late arrival came over and bowed in curt fashion.
“Southern Cross,” he remarked, like he knew him.
“Yep.”
“I’m the Great White Hope.”
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”
“Oh, indeed?” The man looked perky when he really ought to have been put out, given Jack’s tone. “Welcome to our humble sanctuary. I trust these two misfits have shown you around as well as passed on our rather peculiar rules?”
“All sorted,” the Brick said.
“Then let’s get down to it, shall we?” The Great White Hope pushed out his cape in dramatic fashion in order that it ballooned about him, away from his buttocks, while he took a chair. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming. I hope you brought your latte?”
Pretty Amazonia and the Brick deadpanned, “No.”
“Do you see any cups?” The woman indicated the naked table.
“Bastard’s blind,” added her partner.
“Using ‘bastard’ is okay?” Jack whispered his way.
“Yeah, that’s piss-mild language these days.”
“Well,” the Great White Hope barged on, oblivious, “this meeting will be very long, considering the fact I have a lot to say.”
“Shock, horror.” That was Pretty Amazonia.
Her boss shot over a glance. “Mmm, well. There is something playing on all our minds right now — there is the matter of death to discuss.”
“Go on,” said the Brick, suddenly serious.
“Well, for one thing, we’ve always —always — had a gentleman’s agreement with the Rotters.”
“What is this, the skies over France in 1917? A gentleman’s agreement…Pfft.”
“A gentlemen’s agreement,” repeated this leader as he stared down the Brick. “No one dies.”
“Nonsense,” Pretty Amazonia said. “Blandos are always copping it.”
The Great White Hope smiled while he spiralled a hand in the air.
“Yes, well, that goes without saying — par for the course and all that! But we must never forget they are the very people we are sworn to protect.” Here he rose to his feet and placed a hand over the place his heart possibly resided. “With great power, comes great responsibility.” That out, he sat down.
Jack stared at the speaker. “Wow. Uncle Ben.”
The man glanced at him. “Eh?”
“The quote. Amazing Fantasy, issue 15, 1962.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You do know you’re citing from a classic comicbook? The one Spider-Man first appeared in. I think it’s also used in the movies.”
The Brick hit the table with his fist, taking out a chunk that clattered across pale parquetry. “I knew it! I knew the geezer was always nicking other people’s lines!”
The GWH looked horrified. “Bah — I don’t have to listen to this complete nonsense!”
“Course you don’t, Napoleon,” the Brick laughed. “You could go hide in your room again. Maybe brush up on more comic quotes while yer there.”
“Better yet,” Pretty Amazonia put in, “let’s invest in a teleprompter.”
This time the Great White Hope jumped to his feet.
“To hell with you. I’m going to find new recruits who actually appreciate this golden land of opportunity and adventure. This meeting is hereby adjourned. Chrysophylax!”
The man was gone in a blink. One moment there, the next M.I.A. Straight away Pretty Amazonia whistled and the Brick waved.
“Toodle-oo.”
“Chrysophylax?”
“Nicked from Tolkien, some
silly dragon,” the Brick muttered. “Guy is obsessed with ol’ J.R.R., case you hadn’t noticed. In fact, why the joker hangs out in a world devoted to comics escapes me — wouldn’t he be happier in some tra-la-la fantasy domain?”
Pretty Amazonia laughed. “This is a tra-la-la fantasy domain.”
“No.” The Brick held up a thick, knobbly forefinger. “There’re diff’rent degrees o’ fantasy. That guy’s take gives me the willies.”
“And Chrysophylax?” Jack asked again.
“Ah, ‘Chrysophylax’ is the GWH’s open sesame, the ticket outta this wonderland.”
“His password,” Pretty Amazonia whispered in Jack’s ear.
He nearly jumped — he hadn’t seen her get up. She smiled down, apparently amused by the reaction.
“My singular knack.”
“Teleporting?” While he couldn’t smell brimstone, this told him nothing.
“Superspeed. You’d be surprised by what I can get away with.”
Something — fingers? — caressed the inner thigh of Jack’s left leg. The Brick was a small dot on the other side of the meeting table, and Pretty Amazonia hadn’t moved an inch. Or had she? The smug look on her kisser tilted upward a fraction.
“See?”
“So much for honour,” he mumbled.
“Live a little.”
“You okay, bub?” the Brick called over. “Looks like you seen a ghost.”
“Nah, I’m fine.” Time to press on like nothing happened — even so, Jack kept his mitts covering his lap. “So, Brick, what’s your password?”
“You kiddin’? If I say it aloud, I skedaddle outta here too.”
“His is ‘Geronimo’. Mine’s — well? Mister B, are you going to play ball? Your turn.”
“Hers is way too long-winded.” The Brick blew out loudly. “Some Japanese gobbledygook like Watashi, kanninbukuro no o ga kiremashita. Sure I missed a ‘na’ or a ‘wa’ in there.”
“No, no. You got it right, darling.”
“Practice.”
“And the meaning?” Jack asked.
The woman slapped her mouth into an exaggerated pout, and then prised it open to speak. “The phrase translates as ‘I have reached my limit!’ — it’s pinched from my favourite Pretty Cure character, Cure Blossom.”
“Pretty Cure? Is that why you use the Pretty Amazonia moniker?”
Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa? Page 3